Cisco DevNet is Cisco's developer program to help developers and IT professionals who want to write applications and develop integrations with
Cisco
Cisco Systems, Inc. (using the trademark Cisco) is an American multinational digital communications technology conglomerate corporation headquartered in San Jose, California. Cisco develops, manufactures, and sells networking hardware, s ...
products, platforms, and APIs. Cisco DevNet includes Cisco's products in software-defined networking, security, cloud, data center, internet of things, collaboration, and open-source software development. Th
developer.cisco.comsite also provides learning and sandbox environments as well as a video series for those trying to learn coding and testing apps.
History
Cisco has a long history of building a developer community. Cisco began its developer initiatives in 2000 with the Architecture for Voice, Video and Integrated Devices (AVVID). At this time, most developers were focused on creating customizations for the Cisco
VoIP phone
A VoIP phone or IP phone uses voice over IP technologies for placing and transmitting telephone calls over an IP network, such as the Internet. This is in contrast to a standard phone which uses the traditional public switched telephone network ...
systems.
At some point, the developer focus of the AVVID program grew, and Cisco launched the Cisco Technology Developer Program (CTDP). This evolved into the Cisco Developer Community (CDC) and Cisco Developer Network (CDN) in 2009. This growth extended the number of
APIs used to build solutions on Cisco platforms, and included API guides, forums, downloads, and the early version of the sandbox system.
As Cisco's need to support developers grew, DevNet was launched in 2014 under leadership of
Susie Wee. The new Cisco developer network contains APIs from many of Cisco's technologies, including networking, IoT, collaboration, open source, data center, and others. It also contains learning labs, a sandbox, and a community where developers can share their creations. DevNet also attends and hosts many developer events, such as hackathons and coding camps
DevNet holds developer events around the world, including th
DevNet Zone at Cisco Live
DevNet held its first DevNet Create developer conference aimed at an application developer and DevOps audience in San Francisco in May 2017. Guy Kawasaki spoke about
The Art of Innovation durin
DevNet Create 2018DevNet Create 2019returns to the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, California April 24–25, 2019.
Site Components
DevNet has several components that help developers learn how to code and work with Cisco APIs.
API Guides and Documentation
Cisco DevNet supports a wide variety of technologies. For each product, individual API guides and documentation are provided. Several API types are supported, depending on the product. For example, many of the newer technologies have
REST
REST (Representational State Transfer) is a software architectural style that was created to describe the design and guide the development of the architecture for the World Wide Web. REST defines a set of constraints for how the architecture of ...
APIs, while some of the older collaboration-based products might support
XML
Extensible Markup Language (XML) is a markup language and file format for storing, transmitting, and reconstructing data. It defines a set of rules for encoding electronic document, documents in a format that is both human-readable and Machine-r ...
coding.
Learning Labs
DevNet's Learning Labs provide individual labs, learning modules, and learning tracks for coders of all skill levels. Developers and students can learn coding basics. Network engineers can get more familiar with
Software Defined Networking (SDN) and other networking-specific areas. Experienced coders can get more in-depth training on Cisco APIs.
Sandboxes
Sandboxes on DevNetprovide a free space where people can try out their code in a network environment. Depending on the product, some sandboxes are virtual while others utilize lab equipment.
Sample Code
DevNet sample code exists can be uploaded from a
GitHub
GitHub () is a Proprietary software, proprietary developer platform that allows developers to create, store, manage, and share their code. It uses Git to provide distributed version control and GitHub itself provides access control, bug trackin ...
repository to the DevNet Code Exchange. This tool allows developers to find, download, and contribute to code. You can also find DevNet sample code from the CiscoDevNet GitHub organization on ciscodevnet.github.io.
DevNet Exchange
The DevNet Exchange displays a variety of solutions, applications, and code that has been developed with Cisco products in mind by Cisco Partners. The site allows developers to explore code by other developers as well as provides a platform to showcase code.
Awards
Best Overall Developer Portal Award Community Spotlight & Outreach Award, and Best DX Innovation Award. 2018 DevPortal Awards
Collaboration with Apple
In June 2016, Cisco and
Apple Inc.
Apple Inc. is an American multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Cupertino, California, in Silicon Valley. It is best known for its consumer electronics, software, and services. Founded in 1976 as Apple Comput ...
announced a partnership at the
Apple Worldwide Developers Conference
The Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) is an information technology conference held annually by Apple Inc. The conference is currently held at Apple Park in California. The event is used to showcase new software and technologies in the macO ...
.
Apple and Cisco DevNet: What's in it for Developers
communities.cisco.com (2016-06-13). Retrieved on February 10, 2017. This partnership was intended to build greater interoperability between Cisco gear and Apple iOS. Some of Cisco's supported APIs include:
* Connected Mobile Experience (CMX)
* Cisco Spark
* Tropo
* Cisco Instant Connect
Getting DevNet Certified
You can choose to Do It Yourself or DIY, or you can follow a structured approach where a training provider has broken the official curriculum down into lessons, labs and practice quizzes. Regardless of the approach taken, DevNet skill set can be broken down into five domains of knowledge.
# Network Fundamentals (protocols, devices, connectivity options up/down the TCP/IP stack including knowledge of Linux)
# Programming Skills (primarily Python)
# DevOps Tools (CICD, SCM's such as Git etc.)
# Infrastructure APIs (obviously, every vendor has their own so DevNet program focuses on Cisco)
# Application development (or Integrations) and Deployment lifecycle
See also
*Apple Developer
Apple Developer (formerly Apple Developer Connection) is Apple Inc.'s website for software development tools, application programming interfaces (APIs), and technical resources. It contains resources to help software developers write software for ...
*Microsoft Developer Network
Microsoft Developer Network (MSDN) was the division of Microsoft responsible for managing the firm's relationship with developers and testers, such as hardware developers interested in the operating system (OS), and software developers developing ...
References
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External links
Cisco DevNet
Cisco DevNet Learning Labs
Code Exchange
Cisco Systems
Software developer communities